Enemy Within

by Marcella Burnard

  They froze. A flick of her wrist and the tip of her energy blade would slice through force field, muscle, and bone and embed itself in his heart for real. A click sounded at her ear.

  “Back off,” one of his men growled.

  She eased the pressure on the blade and raised her eyes to Seaghdh’s face as she rose. He stared at the hole in the heart on his jacket. His crewman plucked the weapon out of her hand. Anger drained from her, leaving behind a familiar, sticky residue. Even the drugs supplied by one’s own body produced unpleasant side effects.

  Cullin Seaghdh turned his gaze to her. At the glitter of intensity in his eyes, Ari backed up a step. He closed the distance in two strides. He had a blade. She was unarmed, but she refused to run. If he meant to kill her, she preferred to see it coming.

  He clapped a hand to her shoulder and shook her once.

  “You played me,” he accused.

  “Yes.”

  “Well done!” he rasped. “Few blade masters of your skill would have let me humble them before family and friends.”

  Surprise fluttered through her. She flushed at the unexpected praise and at the heat of his touch, cursing at the same time how badly she craved both.

  “Well done,” he repeated for her ears alone, squeezing her shoulder.

  Ari studied his face, the thread of unease twining within her once more. The Art of the Blade was a game, one designed to make your opponent underestimate your skill. Could she ever know for certain that Cullin Seaghdh hadn’t just played her?

  Had that been what the delay in decon had been about? He’d been trying to manipulate her emotions? Didn’t he know the Chekydran had beaten them out of her?

  “Decontamination, Captain,” she said. “And if you want off this moon without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary, I need my father’s crew free to stow their experiments and their gear.”

  Seaghdh backed away a few steps, lifted his blade before his face, and swept it away in salute.

  The unexpected courtesy of one fighter acknowledging defeat by another warmed her, but the inkling of respect she saw in his gaze pierced through a tight place inside her. She held her breath at the sudden burn behind her eyes.

  He lifted the hilt of the blade in his hand. “This is yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Blade rank?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, even though she suspected he’d already guessed she’d been highly placed military. Her competition ranking would only confirm his impression.

  “Second in System,” Raj, her father’s medical officer, said.

  Seaghdh’s eyes widened. So did his cocky grin. “Ever fight the first-place holder?”

  “No. Not likely to get that chance,” Ari replied, stripping her sliced-up jacket and lobbing it into the recycler. Not now that she was in the process of being drummed out of the military. “Now. Captain. About getting off this muddy rock . . .”

  “Aye. You want me in decon. That eager to have me out of my clothes, then?”

  Her body whispered yes. Ari strangled the traitorous voice. “How can you imagine I’d notice?” she shot back. She stalked to the line of lockers outside decon and flung them open.

  “Help yourself,” she instructed, gesturing to the clothes and coveralls in the lockers. “Assure Jayleia that your men won’t be shooting her today, would you? And order the crew cut loose so we can get this stuff stowed.”

  “Bossy, aren’t you?” Seaghdh countered, smiling down at her. “I do like a woman who knows her mind.”

  “Turrel!” he barked. “Pull perimeter, assign guard duty, untie the crew, and get this gear cleared. Our girl, Ari, prefers to be our insurance policy. This lot tries something silly, shoot her, instead.”

  The Shlovkur took the energy blade from Seaghdh, scowling at his captain as he did so. “She’s the only one with the command codes.”

  “She is, isn’t she?” Seaghdh agreed.

  She smiled so she wouldn’t frown. He’d guaranteed that Pietre would try something stupid, regardless of the codes, just to see her shot. Seaghdh’s beatific leer as the decon door closed in front of him told her he knew precisely what she was thinking.

  “Lock these up.” Turrel handed the energy blades to a man in bloodstained freighter coveralls. “Then free the prisoners. Don’t care what Captain Seaghdh says. Any of them make a wrong move, shoot them. Then I’ll shoot her.” He pointed his gun at Ari.

  She grinned. After a decade and a half in the military, she recognized bluster. These men did not want to shoot anyone. Orders? Or were they trying to appear to be something they weren’t?

  “I suppose me stowing my specimens is out of the question?” Ari asked.

  “I can hit a moving target,” he snapped. “I just won’t waste the ammo it would take to put you down clean. Stop grinning at me like I ain’t holding a gun to your face. Only the captain gets to do that.”

  Clearing her throat, she wiped the smile from her face and turned to her father. “Dad?”

  Her father rubbed his wrists and shot a glare at her. “Damned shameful display of ego,” he grumbled.

  The censure jolted Ari. She pressed her lips tight to keep from swearing aloud. Ego? No. More like very potent seduction. Shaking off the remnants of sensual awareness, she curled her hands into fists. The man had manipulated her into believing that he identified her as an equal, if not quite a trusted ally, and he’d used her runaway hormones to do it.

  She might not have a command, but she was still an Armada captain. She had a job to do. One that didn’t afford her the luxury of feeling. If she didn’t put her defenses in order, Seaghdh would destroy every person and principle she’d pledged to protect.

  “That display is keeping you on your ship,” she said in answer to her father. “You’re untied and you’re going to get to keep valuable specimens and experimental data. What more do you want from me? Or am I supposed to single-handedly murder every one of these armed men for your convenience?”

  “That is enough, Alexandria,” her father said.

  She stared at him, hurt and anger a knot in the center of her chest, then she did what she’d always done. She swallowed the emotion, put on an impenetrable mask, and looked anywhere but at him.

  “Would you be good enough to supervise the load, Dr. Idylle? I seem to be otherwise occupied as a hostage,” she said.

  “Alex.” Her father sounded weary. “Don’t ‘Dr. Idylle’ me. This is still my ship, despite your sabotaging my command codes. You’re endangering a very important mission with your games.”

  “I’m endangering?” Ari echoed, waving a hand at the armed man beside her. “A group of pirates hijacking your ship plays absolutely no part? I’m flattered, Dad. Load the thrice-damned cargo. Or is this a diversionary tactic so Pietre can make a break for it and get me killed?”

  Her father pressed his mouth tight. Pain lined his face. He spun on his heel and, oblivious to the armed guard shadowing him, stomped out of the cargo bay. He began issuing orders in a clipped, anger-tightened voice. “Captain Idylle!” he shouted back at her. “Your decon was compromised. Go again.”

  “Twelve Gods, Dad! Now that they have my name and my rank, would you like to give them my serial number, too?” Rubbing a hand across her suddenly aching forehead, she sighed.

  Seaghdh emerged from decon wearing nothing more than that damned grin.

  “Captain!” the Shlovkur beside her barked.

  Reflexes jerked Ari to attention before she could remind her military conditioning that the man wasn’t addressing her as captain.

  “We got a problem,” Turrel said. “She . . .”

  “Aye,” Seaghdh agreed, eyeing her. “I, too, am disappointed. This birthday suit has inspired lust in many a woman’s heart. I had hoped for at least a swoon from you.”

  Cursing the heat rising in her face, she jerked her gaze away from that long, lean dancer’s—or was that fencer’s—body. She had a harder time reining her imagination away from what that
body could do to hers. How long had it been . . . she strangled the rest of the question.

  “Yes, yes. A fine specimen.” Ari choked. “Stunning. Really. If you have anything I haven’t seen before, I’ll be certain to shoot it.”

  He laughed. The rich, melodic sound tempted her to smile. Her lips actually twitched before she conquered the impulse. Maybe she wasted her stony façade on him. She got the distinct impression he knew how strong a lure she found the lines of muscle. It didn’t help that while she stood iron-faced, she was also blushing like a little girl.

  He yanked on a pair of pants, and glanced around the cargo bay, his face all business.

  She’d let him distract her. Again. Ari swore. Her voice shook. She routed through decon a second time and dressed in a set of coveralls Jayleia and she had modified for desert conditions by slicing out the sleeves and lowering the neckline. Not what she wanted to wear in front of a band of pirates but all she had left in the cargo bay that fit.

  Seaghdh eyed her. “I want off this world. How long is this load in going to take?”

  Ari scanned the bay. “Left to the science team? A couple of hours. Give me two of your men. I’ll have it done in an hour.”

  “Do it.”

  The way she saw it, she suddenly had a double crew complement. Mentally, she’d divided them into a command team, the guys with the guns, and a science team, her father and his people. Her? She was wedged firmly between this gamma-ray burst and that black hole. Regardless, whoever had driven Cullen Seaghdh and his crew to commandeer a helpless science ship was probably still out there looking for them. If the pirates were found on the Sen Ekir, she doubted she’d get to explain before they were blown out of the sky. Or out of the mud if they didn’t haul jets off this rock. Whether her father liked it or not, she’d made it her job to get them home alive where she might or might not still have a command waiting for her.

  Over increasingly angry protests from the science team, she got the gear and the experiments packed. With her father upbraiding her over her handling of his equipment, she ushered everyone aboard ship, closed the cargo bay door, and glanced at Seaghdh before initiating a seal.

  “Is this your entire crew complement?” Ari asked. “Any salvage work or body recovery?”

  For a second, agony stood out in the lines of his face. “We’re done here.”

  She nodded, swallowing sympathy. He’d either buried his dead already, she assumed, or had been forced to leave them to a burning ship. If, in fact, he’d crash-landed as she suspected. She knew a thing or two about how it felt to bury the men and women under her command. It wasn’t a pain that could be comforted. She sealed the outer doors. The air lock claxon sounded as the inner cargo doors began closing automatically. Silencing the alarm, she slapped open a com.

  “Crew count and location?” she asked.

  “Eight personnel in cargo,” her father replied.

  “Acknowledged.” Using the smaller personnel door beside the cargo doors, she exited the air lock and sealed the door behind her. “Initiating lock.”

  “Permission granted,” her father said, his tone sardonic.

  She entered the command and sighed under the cover of air being pumped out from between the two hulls.

  “Ms. Idylle,” Seaghdh said.

  “Captain, Captain,” Turrel corrected.

  Great. Seaghdh knew far too much about her while she knew far too little that she could use to regain control of the Sen Ekir.

  Seaghdh exchanged a glance with Turrel. “The problem you mentioned?” he surmised.

  Turrel nodded.

  “Captain Idylle,” Seaghdh said in an arch tone. “Your presence is required at the cockpit command console.”

  “This is my ship,” her father said. “Don’t imagine you’re in charge here, Alexandria, regardless of command codes.”

  “March.” Seaghdh closed a hand around her arm.

  Electricity tingled through her body. She glanced at him when he looked at her. The widening smile on his face and the interest in his gaze told her he’d sensed her response to his touch. Ari bit back a curse and frowned as the pirate broke eye contact and propelled her up the corridor.

  “I’m not in command of anything,” she informed her father. Least of all herself.

  CHAPTER 3

  SEAGHDH ushered her to the pilot station, waving off the Shlovkur following them. Turrel eyed her with dislike. Let him. These men were on the run. Until Ari got them off world, recovered control of the ship, and got them out of her hair, they endangered everyone.

  “ETA for lift?” Seaghdh demanded.

  She thumped open the intraship. “Dad? Status?”

  “Secure in five.”

  “Prepare medical to receive the wounded,” she answered.

  “Why would I waste medical supplies . . .”

  “Update radiation exposure boosters, and then cycle all personnel through decontamination,” Ari ordered by way of reply.

  “Alex,” her father’s voice sharpened. “Don’t be rash!”

  “This is a plague world, Dad.” She cut him off as she keyed in the decode sequence for the command lockouts, aware that Seaghdh stood at her shoulder both watching and listening.

  He tensed at the mention of plague.

  “Captain Seaghdh and his crew were exposed the moment they set down on this moon. They’ve been all over this ship. I’m comfortably certain I don’t have much choice.”

  “Damn it, Alex.” Her dad sounded frustrated and furious.

  Seaghdh slapped off the connection and spun Ari’s chair. Before she could blink, he straddled her, his hands pinning her upper arms. She recognized it as a tactical move designed to deny her the leverage for an attack, nothing more. Regardless, awareness thrilled through her. She leaned back and swallowed hard.

  Then she remembered. He knew she reacted to him physically. Was this move calculated?

  “Explain,” he demanded, no give at all in the power-laced whip of the word. “Now.”

  Annoyed by the command and the compulsion, she fought his voice talent for a moment before the reply spilled forth. “There is a plague. We’re immune. Dad chooses his crew based on previous exposure and proof of immunity.”

  “You’re immune.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you bothered with decon.”

  “No world hosts just one pathogen,” she replied. “We may be immune to one plague, but there’s nothing to say there aren’t other diseases out there waiting to kill us. We can’t afford to take chances.”

  He stared at her, the tension running out of him. He released her arms and settled his hand on her shoulder, brushing his thumb along her exposed collarbone. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

  She didn’t think he realized what he was doing until he smoothed his hand down her arm. Her heart squeezed hard. Ari forced herself to stay very still. It isn’t real. He’s manipulating me.

  “Your father expected you to leave us to die of a sickness that can’t harm you,” he said. “We wouldn’t have known until too late. You could have had your ship back.”

  “Unless I finish the command decodes, Captain,” she said, cutting off the assessing look he slanted her, “the only thing we have is a cramped, uncomfortable shelter sinking into the mud of this moon.”

  He tightened his hand on her arm, then rose and spun her back to her station. “Get us out of here. Take sensors,” he ordered Turrel as he straightened.

  Ari’s fingers flew over the keys, but she still saw Turrel’s face darken.

  “Captain . . .”

  “She’s on our side for the moment, Kirthin,” Seaghdh interrupted. “I need you on eyes.”

  “Aye.”

  “Awaken, sweet prince,” she murmured to the control panel. The discordant rumble of the atmospheric engines vibrated under her feet. “Lift in two. Secure all personnel. As soon as we shed the g’s, get your people to medical and then through decontamination.”

  “I need to see what’s out there,�
�� Seaghdh countered.

  “You’re hijacking a science vessel, Seaghdh. We have not one single weapon and only one set of interstellar engines. If whoever’s hunting you sees us lift, you won’t have long to worry about that plague.”

  He muttered a word in a language she didn’t recognize. Ari coaxed the engines into optimal harmonic. The vibration eased.

  “Secure for liftoff,” Seaghdh commanded, his voice echoing over ship-wide. “Sixty seconds.” He switched off the com. “Can you single-hand this tin can, Captain?”

  “Captain!” Kirthin Turrel protested.

  “Stow it!” Seaghdh growled. “We’re going back alive!”

  Better and better. They needed her. She nudged the throttle and felt the ship strain against the pull of the mud underneath them. No point assuring them she wouldn’t be alone on the bridge, since Seaghdh had already been through decontamination. Maybe she could still get the ship back without killing anyone. Divide and conquer. So much the better if they did the dividing for her.

  “Lift in ten, nine, eight . . .”

  “You could fly this thing blind . . .” Kirthin began. He didn’t finish. Ari assumed some gesture from Seaghdh cut him off.

  “He couldn’t,” she interjected, watching her panels. She’d booby-trapped more than command codes. “No one could.”

  “Just how deep does your distrust go?” Seaghdh said. “What the hell is between you and those scientists, anyway?”

  She honestly could not answer. Some days, she couldn’t even trust herself and had a set of randomly selected traps she had to defeat each morning to release her from her cabin. If she wasn’t fit to pass those psych tests each day, she did not want to be let loose on her father’s ship. She caught Kirthin Turrel staring at her. He shook his head.

  “Not Ice Princess,” he said. “She’s the damned queen.”

  Ari thought she heard grudging approval in his tone. She couldn’t help herself. She laughed until she had to wipe her eyes, and heard the bitter edge in the sound. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

  She caught Seaghdh’s examination and wondered at the hint of surprise in his face. Had he thought her incapable of laughter? She had.